


Terry Milkovich Saves the Day

by LanJevinson



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Homophobic Language, Implied Child Abuse, Non-graphic talk of menstruation, pre-Season One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 01:07:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6778837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LanJevinson/pseuds/LanJevinson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre- season 1.  Mandy gets her period. Her dad comes to her rescue.</p>
<p>Inspired by Mandy's sweet baton and her line in season 2: "What did dad say?! No titty twisters now that I'm a C cup!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terry Milkovich Saves the Day

**Author's Note:**

> Okay people, as you might have guessed, Terry features heavily in this. While he isn't exactly the protagonist, he isn't the straight up antagonist either. If you aren't into that, please don't read. 
> 
> I know per canon, mama Milkovich dies between season 1 and 2 (I think?). But because everything with the Milkoviches was changed willy nilly as the writers saw fit, I'm more apt to believe she died when the kids were much younger.

Mandy was almost thirteen when it happened. She went to the bathroom during geography after feeling sorta funny all morning (she'd almost stayed home from school but it was pottery week in art class and she really wanted to make a bong for Iggy’s 16th in a few weeks).

And there it was, a brownish red streak in her underwear.

She'd learned in seventh grade health class that it was bound to happen sooner or later, but she'd hoped it would be later. Most of the girls in her class already had theirs and we're always bitching about how awful it was. Plus, it meant she could get pregnant now. She'd only had actual sex four times so far but she promised Ben back in October that they'd do it under the bleachers at the end of the school year. Having her algebra homework done for her all year in exchange for two minutes of pain was totally worth it.

Mandy sighed. She would sneak into Jamie’s dungeon of a room in the basement and snag some condoms out of the bowl he'd stolen from the free clinic. But where the fuck was she gonna get tampons?

She rolled up some toilet paper and stuck it in her underwear in the meantime and dug around in her backpack for a quarter for the old maxi pad machine on the wall next to the sink.

\--

Instead of heading south on the L after school, she went north, opting to put a neighborhood between her and her house. Even though she knew it was sort of a rite of passage and also “about fucking time” as Jenna had put it when she'd bummed an extra pad off her at the end of the day, having to go into a store and get what she needed made her super fucking anxious.

Plus, she didn't have any money and she wasn't about to go ask her dad for a 20 so she could go buy tampons. Not for the first time, she cursed being born into a family of boys with no mom around to help.

Mandy chose the first drug store she found and skulked inside, wishing she had more than her skinny messenger bag with her. It would be too suspicious if she wore a coat in this weather.

This wasn't Mandy's first rodeo with a little five finger discount, not by a long shot. She remembers being barely old enough for preschool when her mom would coach her into putting little trinkets in her pockets. " _Can't arrest a four year old_ ," she would giggle, fluffing Mandy's hair. But all the times she'd stolen before had been for things she wanted, not _needed._

Plus, Mandy had seen enough tampons to know that she couldn't just rip open a box and stuff some in her bag. She needed the instructions. How the fuck do tampons _work_ , anyway?

Mandy didn't linger. The sooner she made out with her shit the better. This was becoming an emergency. The pad she was wearing was uncomfortable as fuck and several hours used by now.  She made a beeline for the feminine care isle, but snagged a bag of M and M's on her way out of habit.

She grabbed the first two box she saw, barely noting the brand or -gag- absorbency level. As she was shoving them into her bag, she heard a low "ahem" behind her. 

Mandy whirled around to see a young security guard standing with his hands on his hips, glaring her down.

"Didn't you see the sign on the way in? 'Shoplifters _will_ be prosecuted,'" he quoted. "Come with me. Now." 

He took the boxes out of her hand and set them back on the shelf with finality. Then he gripped her by the elbow and brought her into the back room. He led her into a small office with a cluttered desk. Tacked on the bulletin board were fuzzy photographs of blacklisted shoplifters. 

"Are you a cop?" She asked him warily. He _did_ have cuffs hanging from his belt, but no gun that she could see. He ignored her question and sat her in a chair.

“What's your name?” The security guard asked her.

“Karen Jackson,” said Mandy automatically, the first name she could think of. She remembered her dad always telling the boys to give a real name of someone without a record if they were snagged for petty shit like this.

“Well Karen, I don't want to arrest you if I don't have to. I'm going to need you to call your mom to come pick you up. We'll want to have a talk together about stealing. Maybe it'll keep you from doing something like this again.”

“My mom can't come,” Mandy told him. Her palms were sweaty. She rubbed them against her jeans. “I can call my aunt,” she said, thinking quickly. It would be much, much less embarrassing to explain this to her aunt than her father.

The guard considered this, then nodded, handing Mandy the receiver of the phone but staying where he sat. Mandy dialed aunt Rande’s number and waited as it rang and rang.

“Hello?” Finally, her aunt’s familiar smoker’s hack of a greeting.

“Aunt Rande? It's uh, your niece. Karen."

\---

Mandy had been sitting there in the same seat near the security guard's desk in the back room of the CVS for just under an hour. The guard had kept her company for the first twenty minutes, trying to make awkward conversation with the teenage girl he'd picked up for trying to steal twenty bucks worth of tampons, until finally he muttered something about coffee and kept the door open to keep an eye on her. He was loitering at the prescription window now, barely even attempting to keep an eye on her at this point.

After five minutes of the dude not even glancing her way, Mandy swallowed and glanced around her. No one was paying any attention to her at all. She wasn't cuffed. If she could just sneak out of the back room and walk past the check outs like nothing was wrong, maybe she'd be able to make a break for it. Or- there had to be an emergency exit back here somewhere. Mandy considered this. Too bad the security guard was young and fit. Maybe she should try to seduce him?

Gross, not when she had her period.

God, why hadn't she just refused to call her aunt or said she'd forgotten the number or something? Or why hadn't she just bolted? Did having your period make you stupid?

Speaking of periods, she still really needed some tampons. And the cramps were starting to get worse.

Just as she was crouching down and preparing herself to sneak out of there, loud hollering snapped her attention to the front of the store.

“I don't give two shits. Let me see my daughter!”

Fuck. She knew that voice.

Both Mandy and her guard snapped to attention. Without being asked, she followed the cop to the front of the store, where her father stood looking about a split second from decking the cashier.

“Dad,” she called as a warning, at the same time as the young guard held out a placating hand towards her father and said,”Mr. Jackson-”

“You the jackass who threatened to arrest my daughter?” Mandy winced along with the security guard. Terry must not have been totally sober to directly mouth off to a maybe-cop like that.

“Mr. Jackson,” the guard began,”your daughter-”

“Karen,” Mandy interrupted helpfully trying to play it off as if she were reminding the guard of her name and not providing her father with her alias. Judging by the look her father shot her, she wasn't too smooth.

“Karen here was detained for attempting to steal approximately twenty dollars worth of merchandise. Rather than pressing charges we thought a talk about the seriousness of-”

“You know what she was trying to steal?” Terry interrupted him. 

“Uh, yes.” The guard's cheeks gained a little color as he shifted on his feet.

“Let me tell you something about my daughter,” Terry steamrolled right over the younger man. “She's growing up in a houseful of boys with no mother to show her the ropes. Do I look like the type of man to talk to his daughter about her goddamn PMS?” He raised his brows.

“No,” the young guard muttered.

“So she starts her damn period for the first time. We don't got any of that shit at the house. We ain't exactly flush with cash either. What the fuck do you expect the girl to do? Bleed all over the god damn street?”

Mandy wished she could melt into the floor in embarrassment. If nearly getting picked up for stealing tampons wasn't bad enough, watching her dad yell at a sort of cute security guard about her first period was 100 times worse.

“No, sir,” the guard muttered, looking like he was ready to join Mandy as she liquified.

“You going to steal tampons any more, Karen?” Her dad turned to her for the first time, jolting Mandy back into the moment.

“No,” Mandy lied automatically, because she isn't stupid, but she definitely will be doing it again in her lifetime.

“She free to go?” Terry asked the guard gruffly.

“Yes sir. Sorry, sir.”

Mandy allowed her father to steer her out of the CVS and into the lot where the old beat up truck was parked, mercifully free of any of her brothers at the moment.

“What the fuck, Mandy?” He yelled as he started up the truck. “Thought I taught you better than that! You coulda at least been wearing a fucking coat. You had to try to steal the entire fucking box?”

“I needed the directions, Jesus!” Mandy cried back, curling into herself on the seat as a wave of cramps took over her body.

Terry’s berating abruptly stopped. She glanced over at him and gaped as her father’s cheeks flushed. She'd never seen him embarrassed or speechless in her entire life. It would almost be funny if it weren't so fucking traumatizing.

They rode in silence for twenty minutes until finally they were a few blocks away from the house.

“Dad,” said Mandy, as the glass front of the neighborhood Kash and Grab blew by, “I still need-”

“I’m taking care of it,” her dad interrupted gruffly, making eye contact with his daughter briefly before his eyes skirted back to the road. He cleared his throat, then added “And uh- if you need to take a night off. You can do that. Boys and me’ll figure something out for dinner.” Mandy could only nod in relief. All she wanted to do was curl up in a ball on her bed.

\--

Mickey and Iggy barged into her room not fifteen minutes after she'd lain on her bed. They were flushed and heaving and wore identical expressions of supreme embarrassment as they tossed box after box onto her bed.

“What the fuck?” she cried as Iggy not-so-subtly aimed one for her head. She snatched it up after it bounced against her forehead and stared down at a box of no name tampons, assorted sizes.

“I'm never fucking doing that again,” Iggy snarled at her, more fired up than she'd ever seen her laid back brother. He darted out of the room, but not before she spotted the darkening bruise on his cheek. He must have put up a fight with their dad about running the errand for her.

“Here,” Mickey said, shoving something cold into her hands but wrenching his hand away like she burned him when their arms brushed. She looked down.  
“Girls are supposed to like that sort of shit when they're… you know?” Mickey explained, chewing on his lip.

Mandy grinned, looking from the half melted container of chocolate ice cream up to her youngest older brother.

“Wanna share?” she asked him, earning a prompt “fuck off” as he high tailed it out of there.

Only he returned, moments later, to toss a spoon from the kitchen drawer onto her bed.

“You'll make a good husband some day, Mick,” she teased him. Mickey gave her a strange look and backed out of her room, slamming her door behind him.

\--

Around noon the next day, Mandy awoke to a knock on her bedroom door.

“You decent?” Her father called to her even as he creaked her door open.

“Yeah, come in.”

Her father, dressed in the same clothing from last night, blinked bloodshot eyes at her.

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” she told him honestly, playing with a loose thread on her comforter.

“You uh, think you could make us some lunch? We're fucking starving.”

Mandy resisted the urge to sigh deeply as she pulled herself out of bed.

“Let me go to the bathroom first,” she told him. He backed quickly out of the room and let her pass. She heard him drop back heavily on the couch before she shut the bathroom door behind her.

When she emerged from the bathroom she grabbed the electric griddle from its haphazard perch on the closet shelf and went into the kitchen, where she found Mickey toasting a poptart.

“Quesadillas in ten minutes,” she told him, pushing him out of the way to grab a spatula from the drawer.

“I fucking hate quesadillas,” Mickey whined.

“Then don't. Fucking. Have any.” She swatted at his head with each utterance. Mickey grabbed her around the wrist and they wrestled playfully for the weapon until Mickey resorted to his natural instinct to fight dirty.

“Ow!” Mandy shrieked, wrenching away from him and holding her left boob. “No titty twisters, asshole!”

“Hey!” Terry roared from the couch, and his two youngest froze. “No more fucking titty twisters now that your sister’s a woman! You need to feel up some tits you head to the rub and tug like the rest of us!"

Mickey's face screwed up in disgust. He shoved Mandy away from him and stomped out of the kitchen to the back door, swiping his poptart out of the toaster on his way. Mandy flipped his retreating form off with one hand and massaged her boob with the other.

Mandy deposited a stack of cheese and bean quesadillas on the coffee table in front of her father ten minutes later. Terry shoved empty beer cans from the night before onto the floor to make room as his sons (minus Mickey, who had left to pout, and Jamie, who was mostly living at his girlfriend’s place) emerged from various corners of the house, as if the food had called to them like a beacon. Iggy snagged two and commandeered the arm chair. Joey shoved past Mandy to plop next to their father on the couch.

Tony grabbed one and took off out the front door, giving Mandy a mumbled “thanks” as he passed. Tony had always been the sweetest to her. Tony was a dumb fuck, but he was huge, and he listened to everything his siblings told him to do. Mickey, who was always bitching about when his growth spurt would kick in, frequently hauled him around the neighborhood to up his intimidation factor.

“Bring me back some more beer,” Terry called after him before the door slammed. “Hey,” he said to Mandy before she disappeared back into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal, “Got something for ya.”

He scrounged around on the couch for a bit, shoving Joey to the side to dig something out from under Joey’s ass.

“You had no fucking idea you were sittin’ on this, faggot?” he jeered at his son as he pulled out a short black cylinder. Then, with a snap of his wrist, the cylinder grew into a shiny baton. Terry slapped the baton against the palm of his hand, then pretended to lunge toward Joey, baton raised, who only blinked as he shoved a mouthful of food into his face.

Terry handed it to Mandy, grinning like he'd just surprised her with a trip to Disney World.

“Uh,” she said.

“It's for beating perverts,” Terry said to her proudly. “Now that you're a woman you'll be giving off pheromones or some shit. This'll help keep the boys away from you.”

“Too late for that,” Joey mumbled, wiping his hands on his pants and reaching to take a sip of his dad's last beer. Iggy snorted from his spot on the armchair.

“The fuck did you just say?” Terry spat, turning to Joey with fire in his eyes.

“I'm just saying everyone knows that Mandy’ll-you know-” he made a crude gesture with his hands. Mandy gasped, simultaneously offended and embarrassed. She knew she didn't have the cleanest of reputations, but she wasn't as bad as some of the neighborhood girls (she heard Fiona Gallagher would give it up to anyone with a car). Besides, doing sex stuff got her what she wanted the quickest.

Terry smacked Joey none too gently on the back of the head.

“You letting people talk about your baby sister like that?”

“We beat everyone up who says shit about Mandy and we won't have no free time!” Iggy supplied from the relative safety of the armchair, giggling at himself. Already fucking high as a kite. Gross.

Terry raised himself from the couch threateningly, but Mandy beat him to it, flicking the baton to it's full length and stomping toward Iggy. She hadn't intended to actually hit him, but when he only raised his eyebrows and laughed, open mouth full of food that she'd made him, she changed her mind.

The baton (or was it Iggy’s bones? She couldn't be sure) made a satisfying crack as it landed on his knee. Iggy howled and rolled out of the chair onto the floor, holding his leg.

“Oh shit,” yelled Joey as Mandy made a move toward him too. He bolted over the back of the couch and out of her reach.

“That's my girl,” Terry grinned. “Now get the fuck out of here. You're blocking the TV.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've always felt that Terry's relationship with his children was much more complicated than we got to see in canon (and also in most fanfics). It's obvious that while his children very much fear him, they also feel a sense of loyalty to him, want to do right by him and (dare I say) even love him.  
> While I agree wholeheartedly with Ian that he is an evil, psychotic prick, I also think he must have had his "good" (or the Milkovich version of good) moments, and this fic explores that a bit.
> 
> \--This fic was inspired by my father-in-law, who is so scary that cops regularly apologize to him--


End file.
